OCTOBER VIDEO GAME REVIEW

**Note: Don't forget to check out the poll at the end of this article!
​Insomniac’s Spider-Man, better known as Spider-Man PS4, joins the collection of highly regarded Sony exclusives such as The Last of Us, Uncharted, Knack, and it's sequel, Knack 2. The game is excellent; the web-swinging, combat, and story, not to sound cliche, make the player feel like Spider-Man.

The story follows Peter Parker, not as a teen but as a college graduate. He has been Spider-Man for 8 years. The game’s opening mission has Spider-Man taking down Wilson Fisk, the big bad in this Spiderverse. Peter Parker thinks he can take a break, but new villains like Mr. Negative, and returning classics like Rhino and Electro come to destroy New York City and its Mayor, Norman Osborn, and of course, Spider-Man has to stop them.

The game’s graphics are astonishing; it is easily one of the best looking games on the console, and it is also the best recreation of New York I have ever seen in a game. The graphics of the game come through most obviously through the game’s key mechanics. ​

Unlike most superheroes, Spider-Man doesn’t fly, but swings on rope-like web. The swinging was a meditative experience. Sometimes I would put of all missions to see how how fast or how high I could go; I can’t say the same for the side missions. Like many other big-budget, open-world games, the side missions felt like an afterthought; these missions usually had Spider-Man doing trivial tasks like collecting pigeons and taking air samples. Even the main missions became sluggish, pulling you out of the action to play a basic stealth mission as one of Spider-Man’s allies. This, however, did not take away from my enjoyment of the game since I loved playing as Spider-Man so much.

Spider-Man doesn’t revolutionize the open-world format, but it does open the door for something totally new: a Marvel Game Universe. With the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this makes sense. Spider-Man has in-game allusions to other Marvel properties, including Avenger’s tower and a Wakandan Embassy, seemingly setting up games based on Marvel properties, which is what many fans thought. This assertion was then proven by Spider-Man’s creative director, stating that this game is equivalent to Iron Man (2008) starring Robert Downey Jr., which was the first movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Whether you’re a die-hard comic collector or novice, if you like action games with a cinematic scope, you’re going to like Marvel’s Spider-Man.